Following fallout from meeting with Education Ministry…GTU invited to meet with President Granger on Monday

Oct 28, 2017 News

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The fallout from the meeting between the Guyana Teachers Union [GTU] and the Ministry of Education has been gaining attention at the highest level. In fact, the union’s executive members will on Monday [October 30, 2017] be meeting with President David Granger at the Ministry of the Presidency to ventilate their concerns.
This development came out of a meeting between executives of the union and Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, yesterday.
The meeting followed on the heels of a meeting on Thursday at the Ministry of Education, between union and ministry officials, which came to an abrupt end. GTU officials staged a walk out since they were convinced that the Ministry was not prepared to address their concerns.
In her Ministry’s defence, Education Minister, Ms. Nicolette Henry, in an invited comment to this publication, said that although she was prepared to discuss all of the matters of concern to the union, she opted to start the proceedings by discussing the non-financial issues. But according to her, “they were not interested in discussing that…”
Henry said that during the meeting, she was however able to impress upon the union members that while government is prepared to offer all public servants, including teachers, a recently announced salary increase, it is recognised that there are also other categories of workers who will require specific modalities.
Teachers, according to her, fall into that very specific faction. She moreover emphasised that “until such time that those [modalities] are sorted out, this is how it will be dealt with.”
After walking out of Thursday’s meeting, GTU President Mark Lyte said that the union was prepared to call out its 6,000-odd teachers for an initial bout of strike action slated for next week Thursday and Friday. The union had earlier threatened to commence strike action on Monday.
In response to the union’s decision to uphold its plan to engage strike action, Minister Henry said, “I happen to represent the Government, and not the union, and I couldn’t prescribe for the union a preferred way that they should go about their business, but I can certainly appeal to my teachers to ensure that we always put the interest of our children first.”
She added, “This is a government for all people, and we have to make decisions in keeping with the best interest of all of our people, and therefore all of our public servants in Guyana will benefit from increases.”
Even as she highlighted that there is a reason that Guyana is deemed a developing country, Minister Henry asserted that “there is only so much resources available. These are not decorative things, these are real bread and butter issues, and we have to be serious about what we do.”
However, in a statement issued by the Ministry of the Presidency yesterday titled “Joint Statement from the Government of Guyana and the Guyana Teachers’ Union”, it was revealed that the Union’s concerns about the lack of progress with regard to negotiations of salary increases and other non-salary benefits for its members were discussed.
It was further revealed that, “The Union alluded to a meeting held with the Minister of Education [Nicolette Henry] in which its concern regarding the status of salary increases for teachers which was proposed since December 2015 was not being seriously addressed; and that the pronouncements by the Minister of Education at the meeting were at variance with the Union’s understanding of the Government’s approach to the matter.”
At the meeting, according to the statement, Minister Harmon brought clarity to his most recent pronouncement on the matter at a Post Cabinet media conference held on October 19, 2017. During that forum he indicated that the issues regarding increased salaries for teachers were being considered by the Government in the form of a multi-year proposal submitted by the GTU.
In addition, Harmon told the union executives that the meeting with Minister Henry on Thursday was never intended to be the final position of the Administration, but rather, an interim arrangement. It was at this juncture he revealed that “the President was very concerned about the reports regarding the outcome of the meeting between the Union and the Ministry of Education, and had signalled his willingness to meet with the Union on Monday October 30, 2017 at 11:00 am to discuss all matters of concern to the Union.”
The union at the meeting accepted the proposal and, according to the statement, iterated that it was committed to the process of Collective Bargaining, and that it would bring these developments to the attention of its members.
But despite the plans to meet with the President on Monday, Lyte said that the union has not yet cancelled strike action. In fact, he intimated that based on the outcome of the meeting, the union will be informing its members about the way forward.
The union in recent months has become increasingly agitated over stalled negotiations with the Ministry over its multi-year agreement remuneration package. A previous agreement had expired at the end of December 2015, at which time the union had presented a new proposal to the Ministry.
In its proposal, the union asked for, among other things, a 40 percent across the board increase for teachers for last year; 45 percent increase for this year, and 50 percent for the following three years (2018-2020) for all categories of teachers.
The union in its proposal, too, took into consideration inflation, and had made it clear that “should there be inflation higher than the percentage agreed upon, then the teachers/teacher-educators must get the benefit of the difference.”
But Lyte had confided that since the union was only making a proposal, the Ministry was well within its right to offer completely different percentages.
Speaking of the planned meeting with the Head of State, Lyte said, “The President, as we understand it, will be meeting with us to discuss the way forward with the proposal…” But according to Lyte, the union is not prepared to merely have yet another talk shop, but rather, it has clearly stated its desire to have “concrete information as to what we will be getting.”

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